The income-tax department (IT) attached Rs 150 crore in benami assets belonging to Samajwadi Party (SP) leader and Maharashtra MLA Abu Asim Azmi late on Saturday night. Earlier last week, taxmen had raided several locations in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Varanasi, Kanpur and Delhi, linked to the legislator. Azmi is a third-term MLA from the Shivaji Nagar assembly seat in Mankhurd, Mumbai.
IT dept launched multiple raids on Azmi's properties
The Lucknow-based benami assets investigation unit of the I-T department had launched multiple raids and searches on properties linked to Abu Azmi, as part of its investigation into his undisclosed income and assets. The attached properties include five floors in a commercial tower in Varanasi, 45 flats in a residential tower and Rs 10 crore in the bank accounts of the real estate company Vinayak Nirman Ltd, linked to Abu Azmi, under the antibenami properties law of the income-tax department.
The three-day I-T raids and searches ended on Saturday night, with the taxman attaching Rs 10 crore worth of bank deposits of Vinayak Group, Tower C of a real estate property, Vinayak Plaza at Maldahiya in Varanasi, with a market value of Rs 40- 50 crore, and 45 flats built in Varuna Gardens project in the Hamrautia locality located on the banks of the river Ganga. The 2- and 3-BHK flats in the Hamrautia project are allegedly owned by Abu Azmi and estimated to have a market value of about Rs 30-32 crore.
The properties were attached under the provisions of the Prohibition of Benami Properties Transaction Act. It is the first time that the tax department has issued provisional attachment orders for movable and immovable assets, under the anti-benami properties law, during the course of the searches.
